Metro police in Nelson Mandela Bay on Friday arrested a taxi driver transporting 40 passengers — most of them schoolchildren. (Photo: Supplied / Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality) 
Three days before Monday’s horror scholar transport crash in Gauteng, which claimed the lives of 12 learners, the Nelson Mandela Bay metro police stopped a massively overloaded minibus transporting 40 passengers — most of them schoolchildren from Nelson Mandela Bay’s Northern Areas.
Minibus taxis have a maximum passenger capacity of 16.
Metro police said the 27-year-old driver, who had an expired professional driving permit, attempted to evade the checkpoint and nearly collided with a metro police officer.
He was arrested and charged with reckless and negligent driving, failure to comply with a lawful instruction, and overloading. He has since been released on warning.
/file/dailymaverick/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/creecy.jpg "Transport Minister Barbara Creecy has called for urgent national action to make scholar transport safer. (Photo: Department of Transport)")
Following Monday’s horror crash, in which 12 learners were killed near Vanderbijlpark in Gauteng, the minister of transport, Barbara Creecy, and her deputy, Mkhuleko Hlengwa, on Tuesday said they had instructed traffic law enforcement agencies to intensify their law enforcement operations nationally with a specific focus on scholar transport.
/file/attachments/orphans/ED_592875_359039.jpg "Parents and relatives at the scene where 12 pupils died on Monday after the minibus taxi transporting them collided with a truck. The 22-year-old driver of the minibus was arrested and faces 12 counts of culpable homicide. (Photo: Sharon Seretlo / Gallo Images)")
Creecy and Hlengwa stressed that they want traffic officials to focus on overloading, roadworthiness and speeding.
They said there would be a “zero tolerance attitude” that would include lawlessness and non-compliance by private operators and drivers of learner transport. They ordered that unroadworthy scholar transport vehicles be impounded and reckless drivers arrested, and said they would make unannounced visits to inspect scholar transport vehicles countrywide.
Policy review
The Department of Transport is in the final stages of reviewing the National Learner Transport Policy to tackle crucial issues relating to the safety of learner transport and access to reliable scholar transportation. Creecy and Hlengwa said the policy would be presented to the Cabinet for approval in due course.
“However, [the department has] stated that unroadworthy vehicles have nothing to do with the policy. Operators and associations must obey the rules of the road and ensure that their vehicles are roadworthy,” Creecy and Hlengwa warned.
Their warnings came as the South African Human Rights Commission released its report on the state of scholar transport in North West. It found that “the majority of scholar transport services are characterised by vehicle overloading, the use of unroadworthy and unsafe vehicles, frequent breakdowns, and late collection and delivery of learners”.
The Unesco “Oliver Tambo” chair of human rights at the University of Fort Hare, Dr Siyabulela Fobosi, is regarded as one of the country’s foremost researchers in informal transport services. Having grown up in a rural area in the Eastern Cape, he knows the long distances learners without scholar transport must walk and the perilous nature of scholar transport.
“I am sad to say that learners are still walking the same paths I walked 20 years ago,” he said.
“This crash in Gauteng has rattled me,” he said. “These children died trying to access education.
“We need a solution straight away. The government needs to step up — right now. This was not just an accident. This is dangerous lawlessness. Strong law enforcement is needed. We know they are chasing targets — but they can’t do that with children in the taxi.
/file/attachments/orphans/Dr-Fobosi_Faculty-of-Law-63_536282.jpg "University of Fort Hare law faculty senior researcher Dr Siyabulela Fobosi. (Photo: Supplied)")
“This catastrophe demands more than condolences; it demands a critical examination of how reckless driving and systemic failings in scholar transport violate constitutional rights and the rule of law. To frame the deaths of children simply as ‘accidents’ is both ethically insufficient and dangerously complacent.
“What we are witnessing is the predictable outcome of a confluence of reckless behaviour, regulatory gaps, infrastructural deficits, and a failure to uphold basic human rights.”
Eastern Cape Department of Transport spokesperson Unathi Binqose said parents and communities had an essential role in alerting authorities when scholar transport operators overloaded vehicles or ignored basic safety rules. DM